bring me sound from THE Woods

G

gerardotejada

New member
a very simple cuestion, woods, the uses of them (for neck body etc..)
and nothing in abstract, I want to now why they sound like they sound, how they would affect the tone of the guitar (in HZ if is necessary!).

every one speak about the wonders of the woods, but no one knows why they sound like they sound.
Maybe in my backyard I have a wood with the same tone cualities of mahogany, or maybe in my country there is a tree that is as good as naple for a neck. Or in another spec, would a Brasswood sound like a mahogany body (and why if they are different woods).

I know the woods dont make such a difference. but they are a subtle piece in the sound of a guitar ¡AND I WANT to know why!!!!
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

OK, I'll be the first to jump in where angels fear.

It has to do with Density of the grain. or to put it another way if you took out all the water content of wood, which is why you don't like to dry out a guitar completely, you'd end up with 'millions' of little air pockets. These all carry resonance, and the size of each is characteristic to each wood. The balance closeness of grain versus that of air and water content is what gives a wood its tonal quality.

Yes you are correct. Some woods have similar tonal comparitives to other woods as a result of the above factors.

To see some comparisons of wood tone got to:

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/options_bodywoods.cfm

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks/necks.cfm?fuseaction=guitar_neckwoods

I'm no Arborialist, but its the best understanding I can present.
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

Any discussion about the tonal qualities of woods is highly subjective. The best that can be done, is to draw a broad consensus from a number of people. If you have three people in a room and they say the color of a ball on the table is orange, then its orange.

Different pieces of wood can vary widely in quality and their tonal characteristics, but once again if enough people say its bright or dark, then its bright or dark. The emphasis being on the shared common evaluation of a number of samples. To a certain extent it's a crap shoot and there isn't a substitute for actually trying it for yourself.
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

Howdy,

Been playing guitar for nearly 30 years and I can't add anything to the last two posts. Well said.

Eggman
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

idsnowdog said:
Any discussion about the tonal qualities of woods is highly subjective. The best that can be done, is to draw a broad consensus from a number of people. If you have three people in a room and they say the color of a ball on the table is orange, then its orange.

Different pieces of wood can vary widely in quality and their tonal characteristics, but once again if enough people say its bright or dark, then its bright or dark. The emphasis being on the shared common evaluation of a number of samples. To a certain extent it's a crap shoot and there isn't a substitute for actually trying it for yourself.
Click to expand...


of course that the woods vary in tonal characteristic, but you are not answering my question
You can tell why the people see the ball orange, it has to be with the nature of reflecting light, the frecuency of the colour and then to the eye of the people.

If some guitarist (petrucci, vai, van halen etcetcetcetcetcetc) pick a certain wood and talk about its tonal cualities then it has to be a reason.

empiric example: a friend show me a video were petrucci was showing the newest version of his signature guitar and put enfacis in the good quality woods.
The guitar had a maple/mahogany neck through that is jointed with alder to form the body.

Also what means that this or that pick up work well with rosewood fingerboard. What does have to do the finger board with the sound?

that is my question

PD: thanks Phil, very ilustrative links I´m reading them now
 
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Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

Gerard,

Re: Wood Quality.

1] You can have a wood that is known to be a good wood to use for guitars. Let us say ALDER. If the wood used for your guitar is taken from maybe a young tree, that isn't quite mature enough so that you are using wood from very close to the bark [young wood]; or an old tree that may be deseased this will effect the tonal characteristic, and also the quality of the wood, by its natural condition.

It may also be what gives the wood a characteristic such as figuring. In terms of figuring 'Spalted' wood is actually caused by a funghi, but is highly desirable aesthetically. Burl is caused by young tree shoots groing out from the trunk or limbs of a tree in close proximity to one another.

2] How the wood is TREATED once cut, the speed it is dried, whether it is dried naturally for a long period or treated in a wood kiln and dried quickly or slowly [speed variable] again effects the overall quality of a wood for use in guitar construction. The faster something is dried the more likely it is to crack, split, or react to climatic change later in its life.

Therefore, you can have a piece of wood to build a guitar with, that may APPEAR great, but have its tonal qualities and stability compromised.

You would generally expect that the woods that have been taken from mature desease free trees, and cured/dried naturally over a long time to be of the Highest Quality. There are exceptions!

Also the more ellaborate figuring is, the more it is sought after, not just by guitar makers but also furniture makers. This means it becomes more expensive - and price suggests quality.

Hope this answers some more of your questions
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

gerardotejada said:
of course that the woods vary in tonal characteristic, but you are not answering my question
You can tell why the people see the ball orange, it has to be with the nature of reflecting light, the frecuency of the colour and then to the eye of the people.

If some guitarist (petrucci, vai, van halen etcetcetcetcetcetc) pick a certain wood and talk about its tonal cualities then it has to be a reason.

empiric example: a friend show me a video were petrucci was showing the newest version of his signature guitar and put enfacis in the good quality woods.
The guitar had a maple/mahogany neck through that is jointed with alder to form the body.

Also what means that this or that pick up work well with rosewood fingerboard. What does have to do the finger board with the sound?

that is my question

PD: thanks Phil, very ilustrative links I´m reading them now
Click to expand...
Your missing the forest behind the trees! What does dark sound like? What does bright sound like? Colors are easy to describe, tonal qualities are not! What frequencies are low, middle and high end?

If you want to know what combinations of different woods and pickups sound like, first start with a list of common guitars and how they are constructed, such as maple neck and alder body. Then go to the tone wizard on the SD main page and type in the parameters and see what pickups it suggests. Take the suggestions and then listen to the tone samples. Next go to a store where you know they have X model guitar, built from X materials and try it. Get a feel for its tonality and then go back and listen to the tone samples again and try to figure out what the pickup adds to the mix.

You want a simple answer to a complex problem. There isn't any magic formula that says a maple neck, basswood body and SD Invader make a good combo, because good is relative. Your also not going to find answers to odd combinations of woods and pickups! If someone says they can tell you what a 24 in scale maple neck, rosewood body and danelectro pickups sound like they are full of crap!

Guitars are made from certain materials because:

  • Availability and price of the raw materials
  • Research, experience and trial/error have shown certain combinations to work.
  • The common combinations of woods have shaped our perceptions of what good sounds like. In other words a solid rosewood neck on an oak body may sound good, but it is just too different for the mainstream guitar buyer who wants to sound like EVH.
  • Marketability. Peanut butter and wasabi might be the perfect condiment for a hamburger but do you think Mcdonalds would market a hamburger with this topping if only .00001% of the population would ever try it?
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

Pickups in combination to wood choice:

If a wood is dense with a close grain like Mahogany lower frequencies travel well through it. A wood like Alder allows more high frequencies to travel through it better, so it sounds brighter.

How you wind a pickup as well as your choice of materials wire, magnet, quality of parts etc, are what defines the properties of a pickup. You can therefore create 'bright' and 'dark' pickups that compliment your wood choice, by playing with the 'ingredients'.
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

gerardotejada said:
of course that the woods vary in tonal characteristic, but you are not answering my question
You can tell why the people see the ball orange, it has to be with the nature of reflecting light, the frecuency of the colour and then to the eye of the people.
Click to expand...

actually it doesnt. my friend paul is color blind, its actually been interesting to learn about it.

even the other night, we were repacking bearings for the race car, tommy and i would say with red grease, paul says grey.

he does however see hue, if you show him bright pink and a dull green he can tell the difference, but if you had a bright pink and bright green, that looks the same.

paul is also an engineer, and we've talked a bit about guitars. with the race car, we have a datalogging device, so we can look at all kinds of data (last time we did, mph, rpm, throttle position, brake pressue, and steering angle), but with the guitar we just say 'it sounds brown'

the plan is to do something like that with the guitar.

of course what is a good sound?
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

j9fd3s said:
actually it doesnt. my friend paul is color blind, its actually been interesting to learn about it.

even the other night, we were repacking bearings for the race car, tommy and i would say with red grease, paul says grey.

he does however see hue, if you show him bright pink and a dull green he can tell the difference, but if you had a bright pink and bright green, that looks the same.

paul is also an engineer, and we've talked a bit about guitars. with the race car, we have a datalogging device, so we can look at all kinds of data (last time we did, mph, rpm, throttle position, brake pressue, and steering angle), but with the guitar we just say 'it sounds brown'

the plan is to do something like that with the guitar.

of course what is a good sound?
Click to expand...

uh... duh.... we are no tonedef or toneblind, of course bethoven was deaf and I am shure your frien could do good paintings.

the sound are like colors, no sound is the same that another but at the same time a tone is very well defined. we cant expres colors or sounds with exact words (explain me wy blue is blue) but we can distiguish every one.

Thank for the Help this is a very usefull topìc.

a friend always said that he wanted a luthier to do for him a custom guitar, I think i Would do the same in the long term when I am old.

so the of the woods is important if you are going to make a guitar.

also the dreamed specs are this if you want to know:

electronics: steve special dimarzio, seymour duncan 59 bridge
floyd rose tremolo with piezo sistem
tone and volume knovs out of a JS (for the splitcoil)
scheller tunners
woods:
a maple/mahogany or bubinga 5 piece neck troughbody (like ibanez) with a mahogany body and a roosewood fingwer board.

the proyect is starting when he start working as a ejecurive for IBM or Microsoft, He also has draws of how it will be! and a list of posible names for the guitar!

well if you ask me that is like saying "man, I am going to have sex with [random superstar], oh yeah", but who knows
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

BTW he buyed the pickups and the tuners

and thanks Phil for your tone wise words, is all clear to eme now I´ve see the light
 
Re: bring me sound from THE Woods

j9fd3s said:
actually it doesnt. my friend paul is color blind, its actually been interesting to learn about it.

even the other night, we were repacking bearings for the race car, tommy and i would say with red grease, paul says grey.

he does however see hue, if you show him bright pink and a dull green he can tell the difference, but if you had a bright pink and bright green, that looks the same.

paul is also an engineer, and we've talked a bit about guitars. with the race car, we have a datalogging device, so we can look at all kinds of data (last time we did, mph, rpm, throttle position, brake pressue, and steering angle), but with the guitar we just say 'it sounds brown'

the plan is to do something like that with the guitar.

of course what is a good sound?
Click to expand...

Purely as an aside, as I know about this, and find it highly interesting. Not so much as part of the thread, though I understand what you're trying to get across!

The reason your friend is able to do this is that every shade and colour has an equal comparison on the GREY scale.

In the days when movies were made in Black and white, on set the nurses uniforms would be bright YELLOW. Because, this compared best to the shade of blue they were aiming to re create in the GREY scale.

Many of the World's best Cinematographers, and I'm sorry but I'm sworn to secrecy who, were or are colour blind.

I would love the opportunity to do tonal tests with a computer setup that compared and notated data or the tonal qualities of Wood. I hope you get to do it. Your friends sounds like quite a guy!

Cheers
 
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